


Art and Graphics for There Are No Gays In Football

by alby_mangroves, Malu_3 (Grainne), Mizufae



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Football, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fanart, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-21
Updated: 2013-03-21
Packaged: 2017-12-06 01:18:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/730009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alby_mangroves/pseuds/alby_mangroves, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grainne/pseuds/Malu_3, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mizufae/pseuds/Mizufae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cover, link banner, fanart, and visual apocrypha created for There Are No Gays In Football.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Art and Graphics for There Are No Gays In Football

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Malu_3 (Grainne)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grainne/gifts).
  * Inspired by [There Are No Gays in Football](https://archiveofourown.org/works/730238) by [Malu_3 (Grainne)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grainne/pseuds/Malu_3). 



> The creation of these graphics was an arduous process of agonizing feelings and inspirational moments of clarity. 
> 
> You can see these and download them in different sizes at their source gallery on my smugmug, at <http://mizufae.smugmug.com/Category/Merlin/TANGIF>.
> 
> I'd LOVE to read your comments and know what you think. 
> 
> I've always enjoyed making graphics for things but not since my feverish tween years have I considered it such a privilege to be allowed to do so. Thank you so much for taking the time to check these out, and please, if you haven't already, go read, comment and leave kudos on [There Are No Gays In Football](http://archiveofourown.org/works/730238).

If you'd like to link to There Are No Gays In Football and use an image while doing so, please use the small cover or link banner below! I made them just for that reason. Please do not repost the images without linking to either the fic, this post, or the original smugmug gallery location. Thank you!

Cover, by Mizufae  


Black & White Cover, for e-ink readers  


Small Cover for link-banner-like purposes with sharpness of text preserved  


This is the part where I talk about the art, okay? I hope that you get something out of it without reading these words, but all the same there is plenty for me to talk about and I'm gonna do it, even if nobody's listening. 

First of all, the illustration of the hand and foot is NOT drawn by me. This is a work of photoshop collage, with **images sourced from John Raynes from _Human Anatomy for the Artist_ 1979 ed. Crescent Books, New York.** Malu, as you might have guessed, is the sort of person who keeps this book in their home. Of course, no infringement intended, and if you're at all interested in anatomical illustration or the human form, I highly suggest purchasing a physical copy of this book, as it is a wonderful resource and craftperson's treasure. 

I shoved my way in to making art for TANGIF, just like I shoved my way into Malu's life. To this day I don't know why she's let me. But as soon as she let me know that that fantastic footie fill on KMM was by her, and would I please let her ramble at me about it, I knew that this would all end in photoshop and hand cramps. It's how I express my love when I can't feed you through the internet.

TANGIF is a silly thing, but silly things are important. I strongly believe that humanity needs fictional narrative works to help us towards better lives; that honestly, the way we creatures are so good at forming patterns with our brains, we might just start seeing them in reality if we see them enough in fiction. So, Arthuriana, check, hero's journey, checkity check, homosexual professional footballer with healthy sexual expression and true love? TRIPLE ULTRA CHECK. 

So I wanted the cover to be something more staid, something more _important-looking_ than perhaps Malu thought the story merited. There are so many themes running through the story, and it was at the time maybe only half way written. This was, at the time, a year of my life, okay? And now it's been two! At the time I made this cover, I was very possibly perhaps at the height of my entirely one-sided love affair with Malu. I wanted something that could express the sheer import of the story to me. 

I couldn't think of any damn thing at all.

And then, I was sitting in my local shawarma shop with my sketchbook, waiting for my sammich, and it struck me like a thunderbolt. 

There are numerous underlying themes in the fic, and I knew I couldn't capture them all. The dichotomy of interior/exterior, the warmth of personal awareness vs the chill of denial, the way that familiar paths and places are retread in new and shifted ways. None of these were visual! And I can't draw people! But you know what else is a theme? Hands and Feet. Em is hands (and shoulders, and brain) and Arthur is feet (and thighs, and heart). This is expressed in so many different ways and times, and I totally encouraged it because it's so perfectly cheesy. 

And immediately I imagined the football, central to the image, and the magical Merlin hand and the steady Arthur foot, and lo and behold, a composition was born. 

I agonized further over the textures and fonts. The texture eventually slapped me in the face, straight from the prologue which at that time I had read upwards of two dozen times: 

_"So, of course, when the smothering failed and the embers ignited, it had happened not somewhere secluded and dimly-lit and conveniently far far away, but within the Citadel's painted cinderblock walls under the glare of fluorescent lighting."_

The football itself became subsumed. Malu of course had to have titled the story a whole freaking quote, which both raised my hackles and gave the tiny underfed typographer inside of me a huge text-kerning-opportunity boner. The font I eventually managed to choose, after tearing my hair out about it for weeks and weeks, is the beautiful [Piximisa](http://www.dafont.com/piximisa.font). 

I like to imagine that one day I will go mad and print TANGIF out and have it bound as an actual book. Do you realize it's over 200k? That translates to a ~700 page novel. I like to think that my cover would look very official and important and lovely on a huge tome like that. A huge tome that's hiding accidental teabagging, Spice Girls jokes, triumphant sports narratives, and perineal tiki-taka.

* * *

Link Banner, by Mizufae  


I knew when I made the cover that it wouldn't be a good form factor for when people wanted to link to the story on things like blog posts. I needed something horizontally oriented. Also there needed to be a rainbowy outsidey counterbalance to the aged and smudged and cloistered cover image.

I'd had the idea for the scarf during a skype conversation with Malu at some point. Over the time that this fic was being written, I learned how to crochet, and I've always been fascinated with fiber arts. I like to think that much of me is in Freya, with her hooked potholders and colorful hair and particularly jagged way of using words. I don't yet know how to knit. But let me tell you, when I do learn how? This scarf is #1 on my project list. 

It's surprisingly difficult to make a fake scarf in photoshop but I hope I got close enough. Please also notice the bonus sponsor logo hiding in the back, that's me playing Fun With Fonts again. There's a whole lot of jiggery pokery going on. The blue nitrile glove, the grass, and of course Arthur himself are all actual photos. The glove is lovingly photographed by Malu, who claims it was a temperamental model indeed. The grass is cribbed from football-gods-know where, and manipulated to within an inch of it short green life. Arthur is an actual photo of Bradley James, taken by the wonderful [Jhava at the Big Match 2011 at the Britannia Stadium](http://jhava.livejournal.com/297109.html). 

Bradley in his football kit is nothing short of inspiring, yes? 

(For the people who aren't footie folks, like myself, it will maybe amuse you to know that big fat stripey socks like that are called "hoopy". Bet you didn't envision that when you were reading the fic, eh? Go back and think of all those very serious sportsball moments and then apply giant hoopy socks on everyone. Heheheheheee~)

I tried to get a balance of bright colors and dynamic composition, and also to convey the feeling of *gaze*, like this is Arthur in a color photo in the paper, like we're apart from it all. Come, click, and get closer, you know?

* * *

Disgustingly Perfect/Perfectly Disgusting, by Alby_Mangroves and Mizufae  


[Click here to view this image in its original (enormous) size.](http://mizufae.smugmug.com/Category/Merlin/TANGIF/i-26Hk5Sg/0/O/PerfectlyDisgusting-Orig.jpg) You can also find and comment on just this image [here.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/770369)

(In a little while you can expect links to desktop wallpapers and icons made from this image because I know myself and that's how I roll.)

Where to begin? 

In the beginning, it was the end. 

After two freakin' years, numerous natural disasters, the end of the dang show, emotional breakdowns, a complete upheaval in fandom style and enough ends-of-era to shake a stick at, Malu had written the final chapter of There Are No Gays In Football. Except also? There was an epilogue. An epilogue that I LOVED, and realized any reader who felt even close to how I did would truly enjoy. But it also didn't... Don't you hate when you're reading a big epic fic and the epilogue feels more like the final chapter than the actual final chapter? Malu had avoided that with aplomb. The last line on the last chapter is breathtaking. I couldn't stop smiling when I first read it. How could anything come after that? What would the point be? Should there even be an epilogue?

I was torn, and so, it seems, was Malu. But then I slept on it, and woke up, and shot off an insistent email about the necessity of the epilogue. But there still needed to be _something_ to make the readers stop, and breathe, and shake out their smiles (hopefully), and take a moment to bask. 

I knew I couldn't do it. No piddly typography and over-saturated texture collage was going to do it. But if I could somehow wrangle somebody to draw something... And it would have to be somebody good, because only the best for this precious beast. 

A special thanks goes to [Violette_Royale](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Violette_Royale/), with whom I had recently struck up a creative friendship. She and Alby had evidently gotten to know each other, too, and at some point mentioned to me that Alby, who had commented on TANGIF at the KMM, but who was still really intimidatingly talented and surely in extremely high demand, had expressed curiosity about illustrating something of hers. It was then I decided, you know what? GO FOR IT, and tumblr messaged Alby out of the blue, asking her if she might be interested in drawing something. 

The problem was color. You might know that Alby works near-exclusively in black and white, with actual real materials, conte on paper. I knew that color was too important to the image. I put out there that I would be happy to do the color part, and would she be open to it? I was fraught. It was fraught! We were all very fraught.

But you know what? I think it worked out. Because Alby isn't intimidating, she is WONDERFUL. And she made Arthur and Em REAL. 

Have you ever been in love with someone and not know what they looked like? Have you ever crushed on an internet person? And then you see their picture for the first time. And wow. WOW. Just, wow. 

When Alby sent me the line art for this I was shocked at myself. How could I have fallen in love with a character and not known what he looked like for two years? How could I have held him in my heart and not known the shape of his face? That's Em. That's Em, not Merlin, not Colin Morgan, not anybody else. That's the Em that Arthur looked at and saw his future falling in place around him and that's the Em I didn't understand fully how much I loved him until I saw him for the first time. 

Arthur, too, looks young and fresh and blindingly _alive_ , which after the series finale, we all needed. This is an Arthur who would be pleased to be called Wart by his mates, an Arthur who doesn't skip over obstacles but pushes through them. 

Alby is the only artist I know of who could have possibly captured them both. She pulled them out of nothing and made a picture of them I can keep and remember them by. 

My colors are entirely done in photoshop with a tablet and stylus. I wanted to convey the sensation of the moment, but also to encapsulate the story in whole. That Em is, quite often, the most real, solid thing in Arthur's life. That Arthur coalesces at Em's touch. I hope that, at least a little bit, I managed this.

* * *

Leeks, which have absolutely nothing to do with anything, by Mizufae  


First of all let me just say that I was totally shocked when the relevant chapter of the fic was uploaded to AO3 and appended with this ridiculous 10-minute scribble of mine. I spent the longest percentage of this time remembering how to write cursive.

But second of all, you should all know that Malu, in her infinite wisdom, has gone through and chosen leek varietals for each main character. I'm not even kidding. What is going on? Why have we both been driven to such heights of madness? Why am I contemplating buying a leek seed catalogue and cutting it up and making an alternate universe comic with word bubbles??? If Arthur and Em are leeks then does that mean they'll get eaten? Does it matter that they're eaten if they've experienced true love before being digested? Can different leek varieties even grow in the same soil?!??!?!??!????

* * *

Wart of Camelot, by Malu_3  


As you can see it just gets sillier the deeper you go. Over at [TANGIF: The Boot Room Edition](http://malu-3.livejournal.com/6823.html), you can see NOT ONLY this and more ridiculous abuse of Roy of the Rovers, but also TWO alternate endings, a logo for a band that never happened, a great big soppy love letter, and an actual Excalibur Razor. I'm telling you guys, it's a party over there and you're invited. [2015 ETA: Journal is f-locked. Say hello and leave a comment on the main post to be added.]

* * *

CFC Crest Design, by Malu_3  


Malu claims she isn't an artist, but this is ten different flavors of lie. At first I thought this logo was too busy and too ridiculous to be an actual professional sport logo. And then, in the process of creating the images above, I actually investigated sport logos and typography. I see now that Malu's work is not only an example of brilliant homage, but also is downright classy. Uther would approve. 


End file.
